I write a lot these days. Luckily, most of the time I am my only audience. This is good because I am writing behind closed doors and no one is reading and judging what I write. But its bad because its me alone with my thoughts. Which sometimes turn into a wild jungle of scary jibberish.
Soon I am going to have to write this all into a story about rice where I have to balance the stories of the people I meet with the story I want to tell. Somehow I am going to have to make that work. But for now I write to process and evaluate (and constantly re-evaluate) what I am doing here. Sometimes I think about things and write them out and that writing process leaves me with 5 new threads of ideas to carry out. Those are the days when writing is good. Other times I write and I am trying to confront or figure out a problem and I keep wrapping myself back to the original question or problem. I guess that is the nature of something as complicated as social science.
For example, I feel like I have spent a lot of time trying to understand why people think the rice I am studying is good rice. So I have asked people what aspects or qualities they look for when buying rice. I am trying to get to the bottom of this question by making it complicated when sometimes it appears as simple as this: it’s the only rice they really can buy here because it’s the local rice. They are used to this rice and its readily available and fairly cheap so its what they eat. But I tell myself it has to be more complicated than that so I keep asking people to explain it to me and I continue to get the exact same answers. It has taken me a lot of time to be able to synthesize all of my ideas into this simple paragraph. But I am constantly confronting the original question and wondering at what point do I leave it alone and move on or try to dig further and pull deeper meaning from it all. And maybe now is not necessarily the time for me to even be thinking about this and I should just be doing it. But I can’t do it without thinking about it. And I am drawn back into a cycle…
Its times like these when I need to laugh at the entire process of writing. Because writing is thinking and good writing is the outcome of the combination of bad writing and good thinking. To make light of this situation, here is a link to one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite TV characters, Lorelai Gilmore of the Gilmore Girls. I love this character because her mind works like my mind. But unlike me (who keeps my incoherent thoughts to myself to maintain the image of sanity), Lorelai just lets it go. In this scene she is trying to write a letter, but nothing is coming out. It makes me laugh (and as a bonus she references Casablanca and the Bush White House in one breath-[Casa Blanca=White House in spanish]).
One final note: I think that a lot of my thoughts about writing come (surprisingly) from Steven King. The only book by Steven King I have read the entire way through was a memoir/guide to writing called On Writing. I bought this book a few years ago on the street in Beijing the day before a 13-hour plane ride to the US. By the time I got home, I had finished the book. I realize my writing is much different from Steven King’s, but I appreciated the ways he synthesized the process of writing. Whether its weird science fiction or rice preferences in China, writing is a process shared by many.
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my quest to understand Chinese rice
4 comments:
I think people who can get high quality, cheap, local staples tend to take things for granted. Therefore, if Japonica is widely known (outside of Manchuria) to be high quality, then you need to go someplace where it's not local, or even cheap, to find out exactly what makes it "high quality."
I think you should go to a place far away where people have lots of disposable income (like Shanghai) and live it up for a couple of days. I'm sure they have several fancy foreign developer shopping malls/grocery stores, and you could just go in and hang out around the rice bin and ask everyone buying Japonica why they're doing it. They will be the ones making a conscious choice, which I'm sure people do.
You said so yourself, Chinese people know their rice. Anyone eating it can tell why it's better than the crap they serve in the university dining halls. "Regular" Chinese rice has a poor grain quality - it gets super soggy and doesn't retain the texture. Seriously, how can rice be simultaneously soggy and rock hard? And it's not just the rice cookers. Plus it turns into a grainy, gelatinous glob, and tastes like you're eating glue. The only thing I think it's good for is congee and they don't even eat that in the Northeast. Sushi rice has a firm, springy texture. The grains maintain their shape, and the rice holds an appropriate amount of moisture for a longer period of time. I guess it cooks more evenly (the Chinese grain would be soggy in the middle, and brittle on the ends - the only time I've had that happen to Japanese rice is when it's reheated in the microwave). Plus, it tastes good. You don't need to add butter, or salt, or vinegar to Japanese rice - you can eat it plain. But why am I telling you this? You already know it, and it's not like my opinion matters anyway, because I'm not Chinese.
But I do think you're going to have to go someplace where there's enough of a price difference between Japonica and the standard Chinese rice (whatever it's called) to make it a conscious choice - "I'm choosing to buy this variety, even though it costs more, because of blah, blah, blah." I mean, if you want an answer other than "because it's good, local, and cheap." But then, isn't that good? Aren't we supposed to be eating local? And high quality? And isn't it fabulous when it's cheap? You shouldn't have to ship food from Yunnan to Heilongjiang - I thought that's why people in the Northeast ate more wheat products to fill up (like noodles and those pancake things - which all of a sudden I want).
Plus it's kind of funny if that's why they're buying it. I mean, buying local, high quality food is still a pretty progressive concept in the US (though it's thankfully becoming more mainstream). It's funny because in spite of all the communist rhetoric, I left China with the impression that it is far from progressive. Not that my opinion is based on an accurate representation of Chinese society or national policy. It's not. But it was my impression.
Anyway, I think your research is really interesting Amy. I hope when it's finished you let me read it.
I LOVE that you put a Gilmore Girls clip in here. GG is one of the best shows ever. And I think you are a lot like Lorelai (in only the good, fun-loving ways, of course) when you let your guard down. This is an amazing clip-the show's writers are brilliant. It shows something we all struggle with, but hopefully find ways to work through. Keep up the good work! I am sure you are doing fine-go running like you always do when you are stuck!
AK
The process of writing is pretty laughable indeed. It's when we take it so seriously that sometimes we cannot possibly achieve our goal of good writing because we're being our own enemy, a bad and virulent coach, when really we should just encourage our minds and pens/typing hands to do a dance that others can at least follow if not replicate.
I love this entry so much! If your regular writing is like this, my friend, you are definitely on the right track. I will be reading this again.
PS I've never seen Gilmore Girls before that clip and now I want to rent it. I do believe my mind was called a grasshopper yesterday. It's good insanity. Let's revel in it :)
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